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I found this tin (well, the big one only) in the bargain corner in Ikea during a visit well a couple of years ago and thought it would make a great addition to my baking collection and be my first exciting shaped tin.

It's bright red on the outside and has a grey non-stick inside. As I don't trust non stick cake tins from years of stuck cakes, I always cut out a horse shaped lining when I use this tin, just to be sure. Once baked, the sides of the cake come away easily and the cake comes straight out of the tin which is good, including the small ears!

I usually make a 6oz cake (6oz flour, sugar and butter + 3 eggs) to go in the tin which rises up loads in the middle and is probably a bit too much, but I really like having a big dome on my cakes. The size of the cake easily feeds a room full of guests at a party and it definitely makes your cake stand out due to it's unusual shape. I've used the tin a few times now and it looks really wonderful covered in icing with a brightly coloured saddle and cocolate sprikles mane.

It's really easy to clean after use adn the non stick coating hasn't started to wear at all after several uses.

Overall it's a great tin to help make a more unusual cake which is bound to wow your guests!

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I had been eying up this chair for a while as my friend had one and I thought it looked really good. Usually when I visit Ikea, I go and check out the bargain corner to see what they have and spotted the black version of this chair there. It was reduced as it had a small reddish coloured stain on the removable cushion. It's really small so you can hardly see it and I really enjoyed the discount I got on it! Although, to be fair, I would have happily paid full price for it!

The chair is big and round and it comes in a range of different fabrics with the patterned fabrics and leathery ones being a little more expensive than the plain ones. Last time I looked, the plain fabric ones were £80 and the more fancy ones were £100.

It swivels and some of them come on wheels, so they make a really good desk chair, but now I no longer have a desk at home, I just have it as an extra chair in my bedroom with a big colourful cushion on to make it look really inviting. It's a really nice design so looks great sat in the corner of the room. You can also change the height of the chair to make it comfortable for yourself.

I've used the chair a lot and have had it for a few years now and it's showing no sign of breaking which is great. It's moved house a few times with me, and the only problem I've had with it is the fact that it's a bit bulky so difficult to transport around.

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My housemate arrived back from a trip to Ikea with this apple slicer one day and I thought it was a bit of a pointless purchase, I mean, who can't slice their own apples with a knife?! But then I decided to use it one day and found it is actually quite a lot better than a knife!

It takes a bit of pressure to get it to cut through the skin at first, but then slices very easily through the rest of the apple producing even slices AND removing the core. The core for me was always the fiddly bit when cutting up apples with a knife, so the fact that this removes it for you is great. It can be a bit tricky to get the slices out of the slicer as they get a bit stuck sometimes if you don't manage to fully cut through the skin at the bottom (a problem I seem to frequently have, but my housemate never does!)

After use, it's fairly easy to wash up by just giving it a good shake around in washing up water. My housemate likes to try and get in between the blades with the washing up sponge and constantly complains at how difficult it is.

Overall I now think it's quite a good purchase as it makes slicing up apples so much quicker and a bit easier too.

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Having had a bit of an accident with my old Salter kitchen scales (involving falling from the top of my kitchen cupboard and subsequently breaking) I decided to get a new set.

I was very pleased with my old scales, so decided that I wanted to have Salter brand again. This set is much thinner and lighter than it's predecessor which is really great as it fits much better in my kitchen cupboard than the last set! They look very sleek and the silver disc does not stick out from the white around it which I think looks really good. It also means the scales are really easy to wipe down after use.

There are 2 buttons at the front of the scales next to the electronic display screen. One is the on/off button which also doubles up as a zero button to reset the scales to zero to weigh the next ingredient into the bowl. The other button allows you to switch between metric and imperial. There is also a function for measuring out liquids, although I have not yet tried this out yet.

The electronic screen is a good size and the numbers are very easy to read so weighing things out is very easy. The scales are quite sensitive, measuring to the nearest gram (or 1/8 oz) which is useful if you're a perfectionist when weighing out ingredients.

Overall I think these scales are great and definitely better than my older Salter scales!

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Recently my scented candle from Ikea ran out, so I decided to have a look at the scented candle range again when I visited recently. The candle had lasted me ages, I didn't burn it all the time, but often lit it if I had people coming round to make the house smell really nice when they arrived!

When I got to Ikea, I found they still sold the same candles which come in a range of colours and sizes. In the smaller size I remember seeing:White (I think it's vanilla)Green (apple)Pink (rose)Orange (tropical fruits)Deep red (berries)

In the larger size they had a brown one which smelt really Christmassy! They also had 3 packs of mini ones which I remember seeing in purple, blue and green.

The candles come in a glass jar so you can see the colour of the candle as it burns and it's useful as you don't have to find something to stand the candle on to catch the wax as it melts. After my old candle ran out I now use the glass as a candle light holder. I bought some Tindra scented candle lights to use which are red and smell like Christmas and have pictures of apple pies on the packaging. The smell as they burn is nice as it's not too overpowering so is more of a background scent which I really like.

At just 95p for the small size I thought they were a real bargain so bought a couple! Currently I've only used the white one, but the smell is really lovely and scents the whole room. The larger size were around £3 as were the packs of 3.

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I received this as a present after asking for a small tripod for my compact digital camera that would be lightweight and easily transportable. When I first saw it I thought, that's a great idea! Now I'll be able to stand my camera on all kinds of uneven surfaces without it toppling over. I quickly discovered that not only can I now stand my camera on any surface, but I can also hang it from things such as branches too!

The fact that the legs are bendy and moveable is great as it enables you to ensure your camera is stable on the most uneven of surfaces. The legs are really bendy too, which enables you to wrap them around things as well.

They are very sturdy and the gorillapod has very hard wearing so far and has survived being stuffed into a back pack on several holidays now. I haven't been particularly careful in my transportation of it, basically just cramming it into my backpack, which I regularly use to sit on when waiting for buses/trains. The gorillapod has survived all of this which shows it's a pretty hard wearing product! It's very lightweight and due to the fact it's bendy, easily fits into a bag and will bend to the space that you are trying to get it into.

I'm really pleased with the product and would definitely recommend it to amateur photographers over a standard tripod as you can literally put it up anywhere and your camera will be stable and safe.

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I downloaded WhatsApp just before I went travelling in India to keep in contact with a few people back home. As it's free to contact people using it as long as you can find some internet, it was perfect for me.

I used it quite a bit while I was away and was very pleased with it. It's basically like texting people, but free of charge which is especially good when text messages were going to cost 50p each while I was away!

It is very easy to find your friends when you download it as it connects it to your facebook account. The layout is really good when you are having a conversation with someone with messages in speech bubbles. Green for the ones you have sent and grey for the ones you have received. The ability to send pictures is really good too.

You receive notifications whenever someone sends you a message which is great as you don't have to go into the app to find out whether someone has contacted you. It also displays tick signs on the messages to say whether your message has been read by the recipient.

I now use it to keep in contact with a few friends who are travelling at the moment and it's a really great way to let them know things/find out what they're up to quickly and easily. Plus it's as informal as a text message, so much easier to read or write than a lengthy facebook message or email!

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When we moved into our new flat, we needed some cheap kitchen stuff so headed to Tesco to see what they had to offer. At just a fiver, this kettle caught my eye and we decided to buy it. Having just had the expense of moving, we decided we didn't want to be spending too much and hoped that this kettle would do the job.

The kettle itself is made of white plastic and has a rounded body with a clear plastic bit so you can see how much water is in the kettle. It's a cordless kettle which is great for the price, but the cable between the stand and the plug is quite short, which in our small kitchen is no problem to us. The on/off switch seems pretty sturdy and lights up when the kettle is turned on.

We've been using the kettle daily for 18 months now and it's still going strong. The only problem is that it's developed a leak when pouring so when pouring hot water into a mug for a cup of tea, the kitchen side gets a bit wet too. We can't see any cracks or anything so assume it must just be that the lid isn't quite as tightly sealed as it was when we bought it.

Overall I'd definitely recommend this kettle. It boils water, doesn't look too shabby and is very cheap. When it packs in, I'll definitely be heading back to Tesco to buy the exact same kettle again.

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When I had accidentally broken my old Tesco value toaster by sticking a fork inside it and snapping a heating wire, I headed straight back to Tesco to buy the exact same toaster again. Unfortunately they didn't have one in stock and I wanted to buy a toaster immediately so I settled for this one instead as it was only a little over a tenner.

I was secretly quite pleased that I'd purchased a nice looking stainless steel toaster rather than the cheap white plastic one it was replacing. It certainly looks very nice in my kitchen and looks a little less studenty.

There is space for 2 slices of bread and it toasts both slices evenly on both sides. There is a dial where you can change how toasted you want your bread which is great and if you have accidentally set it too high, the early pop up button comes in really useful. A feature which is really great is a button you can press if your bread is frozen which somehow seems to work quite well, although I can't work out how it's any different from just toasting normally.

Another useful feature is that you can make the bread lift higher out of the toaster which is really good for things like crumpets which often get stuck inside toasters as they are a bit small.

I have only had the toaster for about 6 months, and am very pleased with it so far. It looks nice, toasts well and has a few extra features which my old tesco value toaster was lacking!

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When I moved into my flat about I thought we'd be ok without a toaster, but soon decided that we definitely needed one as the grill on our oven was terrible. We decided we didn't want to spend too much on a toaster, so headed to Tesco to see what they had. We came out very pleased with ourselves with this bargain toaster (I recall it costing around a fiver).

It toasts bread very well, but the only problem is it only toasts 3/4 of the slice as the top of the bread pokes out of the top of the toaster. This of course isn't a problem if you flip the bread over half way through toasting, although it is a bit annoying. We did discover that Tesco value bread fits quite well though!

The cancel button is really useful for popping up your toast early if needed. I had bought a cheap toaster before and it didn't have this feature so I was pretty pleased when this one did. It also has a dial to control how toasted your toast gets, ranging from warm bread to burnt to a cinder. The crumb tray is good too as you can easily remove the crumbs from the bottom of the toaster without having to shake it upside down over the bin. The white curved shape of it looks quite nice and makes it look like it might have cost more than just a fiver.

Unfortunately I got a pita bread (ripped in half as it's not big enough to fit a whole one in) stuck inside the toaster and whilst trying to fish it out with a fork, I broke one of the heating wires so the toaster no longer works. We had had it for over a year though, so it did very well considering it's price!

Overall I'd say this is a great little toaster for the price, but it is a bit small for proper sized slices of bread.

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I bought this book when I travelled to India as it covered the area I was visiting. I had borrowed the India lonely planet guide from a friend, but it was really big so I got this guide as it was a much better size to carry round. The information contained inside it was very similar to the full India guide, but it had a few extra things in it too.

The book has a colour section with a map of the region as well as "top 20 experiences" containing colour photos and descriptions to help get inspiration for your trip. There is also a pull out map of Delhi which comes with the book, although I found it little use having a map when I got lost in Delhi as there are no street names anywhere anyway!

The book is split into 7 regions (Delhi, Agra and Jaipur get their own sections and the rest of Rajasthan is split into North, South, East and West). Each section contains loads of information of places to stay, places to eat and things to do in each place. There's maps throughout the book showing where all of these things are which is useful when deciding where to stay. There's also a short history section which is really interesting.

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Loads of my friends had this nail varnish and I thought it looked really great so decided to buy it for myself. I bought it in Boots when there was a 3 for 2 deal on, but the price should have been £3.99.

Excited when I got home, I decided to try it out over they pink nail varnish I had on. So I painted it over my nail varnish and was very disappointed that it hardly cracked at all and made my nails look terrible. In my excitement, I had failed to read the instructions on how to use it on the outside of the bottle.

To get best results you have to paint it over the top of nail varnish which you have just put on. It says (in small writing on the bottle) to put a thin layer of nail varnish on, then wait 1 or 2 minutes until your base coat is touch dry and then paint over that with the croc effects nail varnish. It also says 'do not apply to dry nail varnish'. Oops.

I have now found that for best results, you don't need to wait for the base coat to be touch dry. I paint from thumb to little finger with the base coat and as soon as that is done, paint over the top with the barry m nail varnish. That's how you get really big cracks to appear.

Having played around with a lot of colours, I have discovered that bright colours such as pink and gold work best whereas paler shades such as light green and yellow don't look as good.

As the nail varnish is prone to chipping (I guess due to the fact it cracks as it dries) I'd advise always putting a coat of clear nail varnish over the top to make it last longer.

The most annoying thing about it, is that it takes forever to get off with nail varnish remover! Also, the brush has dried up inside the bottle and it's pretty difficult to apply now without getting nail varnish all over the surrounding finger too...

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Having broken my old lamp which I'd had for years, I was looking for a cheap option for my bedside table. I wanted something that was colourful and wasn't going to look plain and boring against my cream coloured walls.

I chose these lamps as they were reasonably priced and I really liked the idea of them being touch operated rather than having to reach for a switch half way down the wire. Another thing which attracted me to these lamps is the range of colours they come in of which I chose green. The colours they come are pink, green, blue, purple, white, brown, black, red and natural.

They have 3 different light levels which are changed by touching the base of the lamp. However, I did discover that only certain bulbs are able to dim, so I now have one lamp where I can change the brightness and one where I can't, so check the bulb says it's dim-able on the box before you buy it!

The lamps themselves are compact and come in quite a small box which makes them easy to carry home. The width of the base of the lamp is 11cm and the shade is 16cm across (taken from the Argos website). They are therefore great for a bedside table as they don't take up too much room.

The style of the lamp is basic enough to be able to fit in in most people's houses and the colourful shades add a nice splash of colour. The range which they come from (Argos colour match range) also have other products (such as blinds and bedding), so you can get other accessories to match for your bedroom.

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I booked return flights from London to Tbilisi with a stop in Kiev in both directions. I booked the ticket with Aerosvit Airlines as it was the cheapest option and the flights between London to Kiev were both operated by Ukraine International Airlines.

Having never heard of Aerosvit or Ukraine International Airlines before, I had no idea what to expect. I was therefore pleasantly surprised when I got on board the flight and the seats weren't too cramped like on many budget airlines. I was travelling with a friend who is over 6 foot tall and he had no problem with the legroom on the flight.

The staff on the flight were very nice and on the way out, apologised profusely when despite the fact my friend had ordered a vegetarian meal, they were unable to serve him one due to a mix up somewhere. This was a bonus for me as I got 2 sandwiches which I needed as they were pretty small and I wouldn't say constituted a meal. We did get a snack as well, but I was disappointed with the amount of food which was provided. On my way home, the food was much better (we actually got a hot meal) and there was enough of it too.

Overall I was impressed with the service I received on board the flight and having booked the flight through Aerosvit, the price was very good too!

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Having seen Billy bookcases at friends' houses, I decided the design of them looked great and bought a couple for myself. It helped that every one of my friends that owned one recommended it too! I ended up buying a tall one and a small narrow one too.

The very basic design of them means they'll fit in in almost any house and they come in a range of finishes too. They also come in a variety of different heights and widths so there's definitely one for everyone! They are also very reasonably priced, which is probably why everyone has them.

As with almost everything from Ikea, Billy bookcases come as a flat pack to build at home. You get given everything you need to build them, except a hammer (for which I just used the heel of a shoe) and a screwdriver (which I did have). The instructions are very simple to follow and I had absolutely no problems getting the shelves together on my own. It was really quick and easy and much less stressful than I had expected. You can choose the heights of each of the shelves which is good as you can make them exactly the height you want rather than being stuck with whatever the manufacturer has decided is best.

The result is a good sturdy set of shelves which have been put to good use tidying up the house a bit. They're not too heavy either, which is great if you've built it in the middle of the room and need to move it over to a wall.

As yet, I haven't found anything to be wrong with this product and am really pleased with them.